Machines for treating textile articles with liquids, such as washing, scouring and dyeing machines are usually designed and manufactured to process a particular quantity or number of pounds of textile articles. When it is desired to process less than a "full load" some adjustment in the amount of water, chemicals, or treating liquid must be made. This adjustment is usually made in home-type laundry or washing machines by reducing the amount of water and soap supplied with a "partial load."
While varying the amount of water and detergent successfully cleans partial loads in home-type washing machines, such partial loads are not subjected to the same type of washing action as are full loads. Such deficiencies in treating action may be tolerated for home laundry, but are not permitted in more precise liquid treating operations, such as dyeing of textile articles. In such more precise liquid treating operations, it is necessary to very accurately control various operating parameters, such as temperature, liquid concentrations, liquid contact with the textile articles, dwell time of the textile articles in the treatment liquid, and agitation of the textile articles in the treatment liquid, if the same results are to be achieved with varying quantities of textile articles being treated in the same machine.
Attempts to reduce the effects of variances in washing action with varying loads are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,274,121 and 2,530,822. These patents disclose textile washing machines with a cylindrical perforated rotor or washing cylinder provided with a baffle plate mounted therein for movement between the ends of the washing cylinder so as to vary the volume or capacity of the portion of the washing cylinder which contains the textile articles when washing varying quantities of textile articles therein. While the baffles disclosed in these patents do change the volume of the article-containing portion of the washing cylinder, these baffles do not change the volume or space occupied by the liquid in the washing machine when processing reduced loads of textile articles.